If your Nerve, deny you
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: The election was in 13 days, but who's counting? Or, are there enough waffles in the world for this degree of stress? References to the 2016 American Presidential election, Game of Thrones, crafting, Frozen. No apologies from an ardent Democrat but fair warning what lies ahead is partisan.


"Babe, really? Another one? That's like three tonight. And no drabbles," Leslie said to the ping of notification. It was the Ben ping, not the work email one or the sadly less frequent but always precious Ann ping that she'd carefully made from a fragment of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?"

Ben hardly glanced up from his screen. The triplets were squirreled away in their rooms for the night, though there was still the required last pass to secure all electronic devices and dole out kisses, like extremely friendly flight attendants. Three was so many more than two that they had long ago learned bedtime was a task for two parents, however tired, sneezy or stressed they might be. The smacking kiss in return and Sonia's frequent diatribes on the lack of female representation in the media, starting with the Smurfs, were always energizing and healing, even better than whipped cream according to Leslie, which was saying a lot.

"We all have our ways of coping, Leslie. You knew that when you married me. At least it's not women or booze," Ben said absently, his fingers already tapping away, less rhythmically than Leslie but then she'd taught herself to type in 4th grade to prepare for the course Parks and Rec was sponsoring and could still do 115 words per minute unless her carpal tunnel was acting up and she couldn't just power through.

"Yeah, we saw what that blueberry stuff did to you. Are you at least getting comments?"

"Not a ton, but there have been several kudos and a few favorites. And not all Barney and Jean-Ralphio. Jeez. I wish I could make him unfollow me but I don't want to owe Mona-Lisa anything," Ben replied, crossing and uncrossing his bare feet.

"Is it helping?"

"A little. I have this feeling, like if I just get the story right that it'll all be okay," Ben said.

"You know making Hillary the Maverick or the Ledgerman in your Cones of Dunshire fanfiction can't actually affect reality, right?" Leslie asked.

Ben was adorable, the most wonderfully creative elf-king of a husband, but she needed to make sure he hadn't gone entirely off the rails. The election was driving them both crazy and having to be calm and articulate all the damn time at work was wearing them out. They'd discovered that any dinner table discussion had to be curtailed as Wesley and Stephen reacted to even the mention of Donald Trump like radioactive red dye #40; it made them wish for the potty humor that had previously been so enticing to their sons. It just left the short time after the children were in bed and unconscious for the night and the time they agreed to turn off the light to try and process all the anxiety. Striking a balance between secret Facebook groups and Tumblr reblogs was hard so they had tried increasing the frequency of waffles, whipped cream and sex, in various combinations, to good effect until the past few weeks. Halloween was coming up and then, within 10 days, the election. Ben had started writing, exponentially, in his preferred fandom, a sort of RPF crossover with Hillary and Tim Kaine and the Castro brothers. She knew he was feeling amorous of Joe Biden appeared in the story and exalted if Michelle Obama made a cameo on the Iron Throne in a character's dream.

"Do you even listen to me? She's the Lamplighter, obviously, she has the most power. You always forget that and you never keep the Oculus and the Maverick straight either," Ben said, only slightly exasperated, Leslie could tell, but it was allowed with her, a relief compared to all the times he had to listen to some nonsense at work and remain reasonable, no matter what.

"Ok, ok. Sorry. But, babe, maybe rein it in a little. I kind of think you passed the inflection point of coping after the second story; this new multi-chapter one with the Game of Thrones crossover stuff is getting a little…intense," Leslie suggested.

"You're one to talk, #nastywoman. You've been cursing the past hour over your cross-stitch—or the Daily Kos tweets? I can't tell," Ben smirked a little and gave her a once-over look that was both appreciative and amused. Leslie huffed. So she was wearing her Ruth Bader Ginsburg robe and lace collar over her #nastywoman tee-shirt from Zazzle, her Hermione Granger wand thrust through her messy bun and her enameled hot sauce earrings. Ann would understand though she was unlikely to make a move the way Ben seemed prepared to, the laptop finally leaving its namesake location so he could sidle over to her and peer over her shoulder at the cross-stich and perhaps down the front of her tee-shirt at the décolletage not concealed with the tatted lace of the judicial collar.

"It's bold with the dark background, that really brings out the white suit and the purple ribbon…Emmeline Pethick-Laurence would be proud," Ben said, pointing at the white pantsuit, the subtle shading of the suffragette rosette and the faint gold of the silk thread Leslie had used for Hillary's hair against the charcoal grey she'd chosen.

"I like to think so. We should try to find out who the biggest geek is in the campaign and send them a link to your stories," Leslie said, carefully setting the sewing with its needle on the bedside table and turning to Ben.

"Do you think? I can't decide if I would love it or die. It's not like at Comic-Con, everyone's declared themselves there," Ben said, yawning a little but still sneaking a hand under the hem of the tee-shirt and making the most appealing in-roads on what was left of Leslie's stress.

"Well, it's something to think about. Something else besides the 538 anyway and there are no calories," Leslie said.

"This has no calories either," Ben replied, moving in closer.

"It does if you count all the sugar left on my mouth after those Nutella waffles, oh!" Leslie got out.

"I had other plans. I have other plans, which you'd have figured out if you followed the rules of the game," Ben murmured.

"It's all… about…the cones," Leslie sighed and closed her eyes and enjoyed his strategy. Ben liked to win and she liked the throw the game; those were the rules of a happy marriage, their happy marriage.


End file.
